That Symbol Has Been Engraven Upon The Arms Of How Many
Princes, Knights, And Crusaders!
Don't you see a moral as
applicable to them as to the swindling Beyrout horseboy?
I have
brought you back that cheap and wholesome apologue, in lieu of any
of the Bethlehemite shells and beads.
After passing through the porch of the pedlars, you come to the
courtyard in front of the noble old towers of the Church of the
Sepulchre, with pointed arches and Gothic traceries, rude, but rich
and picturesque in design. Here crowds are waiting in the sun,
until it shall please the Turkish guardians of the church-door to
open. A swarm of beggars sit here permanently: old tattered hags
with long veils, ragged children, blind old bearded beggars, who
raise up a chorus of prayers for money, holding out their wooden
bowls, or clattering with their sticks on the stones, or pulling
your coat-skirts and moaning and whining; yonder sit a group of
coal-black Coptish pilgrims, with robes and turbans of dark blue,
fumbling their perpetual beads. A party of Arab Christians have
come up from their tents or villages: the men half-naked, looking
as if they were beggars, or banditti, upon occasion; the women have
flung their head-cloths back, and are looking at the strangers
under their tattooed eyebrows. As for the strangers, there is no
need to describe THEM: that figure of the Englishman, with his
hands in his pockets, has been seen all the world over: staring
down the crater of Vesuvius, or into a Hottentot kraal - or at a
pyramid, or a Parisian coffee-house, or an Esquimaux hut - with the
same insolent calmness of demeanour. When the gates of the church
are open, he elbows in among the first, and flings a few scornful
piastres to the Turkish door-keeper; and gazes round easily at the
place, in which people of every other nation in the world are in
tears, or in rapture, or wonder. He has never seen the place until
now, and looks as indifferent as the Turkish guardian who sits in
the doorway, and swears at the people as they pour in.
Indeed, I believe it is impossible for us to comprehend the source
and nature of the Roman Catholic devotion. I once went into a
church at Rome at the request of a Catholic friend, who described
the interior to be so beautiful and glorious, that he thought (he
said) it must be like heaven itself. I found walls hung with cheap
stripes of pink and white calico, altars covered with artificial
flowers, a number of wax candles, and plenty of gilt-paper
ornaments. The place seemed to me like a shabby theatre; and here
was my friend on his knees at my side, plunged in a rapture of
wonder and devotion.
I could get no better impression out of this the most famous church
in the world. The deceits are too open and flagrant; the
inconsistencies and contrivances too monstrous.
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